sabato 27 settembre 2008

Interview with Federico Calandria

q)What is your name?

a)Federico Calandria

q) Where do you live and work?

a)I live and work in Mendoza, Argentina

q)What is your creative process like?

a)My creative process is variated, I nurtured by reality, I'm always observing, analyzing, I like diversity, different realities. I also like other branches of art, I love the cinema, literature and music, this greatly influences my work, also the history of art and the comics, all these things act as triggers that stimulate me to realize my creations. I think than while more variated and rich is the culture of the artist or the designer, he has more tools to create and make betters works. Once I have an idea that interested me, I work in different sketches to polish to the maximum, then I select the best sketches and I moves them to the digital edition or to canvas. Other times I'm just drawing and ideas emerge while I play with lines.

a)My vision of art is very much connected with the city and the modern man, their problems, their miseries, their characters, their histories and their follies. My works are responding to an alienated world and decomposing, where humans sleep a life stereotyped, manipulated by corporations seeking the accumulation of money and power. My characters are marginal beings, losers, fighters, adventurers, mutants, strange animals, robots, psychopaths, all represented with a vision ironic as the only defense against a universe dominated by the superficiality and violence.

q) How long does it take for you to finish a piece?

a)Most often I work very quickly, I have no patience to spend too much time on a work, I also like that the piece keep a little freshness from the original doodle about it was conceived.

a)Yes, I am producing a series of products such as T-shirts, stickers and posters that I will sell on the Internet soon, they can also obtain original works if you want.

q) Anything that people should know about that we don’t??

a)Sorry, I don’t understand the meaning of this question.

q) What is your best piece of advice for those who would like to rise in their level of artistry?

a)The best advice is to work hard, open their minds and look for different ways, which are not left with just one thing, not discouraged by adversity, always seeking to overcome, never relax and think that one has succeeded, and always seek to improve. Do not be obsessed with being famous and being millionaires. Concentrate on your personal search and be sincere in their work.

q) What inspires you to keep going when the work gets frustrating or tough?

a)The passion for what I do, the internal mandate to move forward, faith in oneself and in what I do.

q)How do you describe your work to those who are unfamiliar with it?

a)I'm an artist and designer, I like to make drawings and spend much time in front of a computer. Perhaps you think my art is created by a child, but like the great Pablo Picasso said: "at age 12 I knew draw like Rafael, but I needed a lifetime to learn to paint like a child.". Well, I don't drawing like Rafael yet, but it don't worried me a lot...

q) What kind of training did you have which helped you achieve your current level of artistry?

a)I drawing long as I can remember, at age 12 already had a stack of comics in my authorship. In university I studied graphic design which gave me a vision more contemporary of art, which in turn gave me notions of composition and visual communication, in turn, I learned to handle digital editing software and multimedia technologies. In year 2004 I participated one season in the workshop of the mendocino painter Angel Gil who transmitted me the mystique of the old school. One learns from watching and enjoying other artists who are in similar or totally different searchings. The important thing is to have the sensitivity to absorb the good things that make you grow day by day.